Tag: incubate ideas

Welcome back to my blog! hope to help you understand how the creative process works when you get stuck and cannot seem to progress with an idea.

Art is not something you can force out of yourself. We all have funky days. Have you noticed? However there are ways to stay connected to that intuitive right side of the brain where all your creativity is born. The answer is to USE it even when you are in a funk.For those of you who have a generational gap and cannot quite get the meaning of ‘being in a funk’, it means your creative right brain feels slumped, unproductive, sluggish. Yet, you want to be stimulated to create again! Here are some ideas on how to break through.

Your will not FEEL like doing anything but sulking. Be assured that it is normal to feel this way in a funk. Just don’t wallow in it! Try journaling about your feelings at this time. Writing uses the left brain for language symbols (letters) but draws upon the right creative side to think ‘out of the box’. Create symbols for your feelings. You can relate them to simple images like clouds over the sun; an ant crawling in the grass; sitting on a dime to express, “I feel lower than a dime right now”.

Draw images in the process of journaling too, right next to the words. Use vivid nouns and verbs that are not ordinary to you; add adjectives and adverbs that are descriptive words that amplify meaning to your writing like: buoyant. Voila! You can sift out an image from these words!

Feelings can be connected to symbolic images as well. Make a list of feeling words in your sketchbook that relate to where you are in this moment of your life. Put a visual symbol to your word. These may be personal only to you and misunderstood by others. That’s O.K.

The idea is to gently lead you out of the funk. Sometimes, I need to do something for others. Right now, I am volunteering to help young cancer patients at the local hospital, to draw their feelings and frustrations on paper, or even their hopes! I am very excited about this and excitement feeds my creativity.

I am strongly motivated by color. I will purposely force myself to paint a small painting using bright pinks, yellow-greens, oranges and turquoise. These colors really stimulate me and make me feel happy. I have no big plan on what to do with them. Maybe someday I will use parts of them in a collage.They just get filed into my “To Be” portfolio of ideas, torn paintings, playful painting and drawings. My work on experimenting with new mediums also goes in this file. This portfolio comes out when I am in a funk. Well, actually my storage is in a drawer in my studio.Used when I am ‘stuck’.

Sometimes, I need to get rest because I have been too busy. I know one thing about creativity. It wears out when you wear out. It shuts down when you are under pressure. Really! Creating should be like a vacation. It is the place you catch your breath. My high school students used to call my art studio, “The Refuge”. It was where they could unwind after Trigonometry soaked up their brain! When you create it should be a release, not work. Relax, breathe, close your eyes, think of something silly like two ridiculous words together, like ‘sandal-mouth or toe-teeth’. Then, draw it. Now do another. Play, laugh and feel the tension drain out of you. Then, quietly think of what you really desire to
say in a new artwork and begin to sketch your idea. Blessings!

It happens around 4:30am. I am half asleep and my creative “think engine” starts to send ideas my way. I really do not want to think this early. I want to s-l-e-e-p. I know they are really great ideas and that they will be gone like a puff of air if I do not pay attention to them but I don’t want to wake up! Most of my life I had to awaken early to go to my job. Now I have a choice. You think?

Years ago, when I was painting full time, I started my day with what artist’s call ‘morning papers’. The concept is to have a notepad ready by your bed (phone texting is not accurate at 5 am) and then you write everything that comes into your mind before your real brain wakes up and says, “I need coffee”. I got some great painting titles that way. This week, I found some of my morning notes when I was reorganizing my studio. The ideas were really good! Only now, I don’t need to arise early and my internal clock is moving to a more sane time. I wonder if there is a way to dictate my ‘morning papers’ into my phone? But then, I have to be more awake to put in the password, find the icon, etc. No I’ll pass on this one. I wanna sleep but I don’t give in to it.

The creative center of the brain works when we are slowed down. In a relaxed mode, ideas can come forth. Creativity is birth on the right side of your brain. It is the abstract thinking side, not the analytical side. The idea is to access the right brain for ideas. Our best thinking is not when we TRY but when we incubate ideas and let them kind of ‘cook’ until, shazam’ it moves into the understanding part and makes sense.

I start with a fuzzy concept like I want to express the colors I love and textures, which is the basis for a lot of my work. I get my paints out and play around. I may start scribbling, drawing nonsense, like leaves or squiggly lines or doodles. Slowly, something is birth forth and I take it from there. I might start adding texture to my substrate of choice (canvas, illustration board or watercolor paper). I can do this wth crumpled tissue paper, gels, even fabrics that I can gesso over. Then I start adding color. For me, this is the intuitive part. My ideas start to build on each other and I may end up working mostly in inks or oil pastels. I go with what feels right.

I have learned to trust myself and my sense of balance and unity. My work is not considered finished until I put it away for several days and then critique it for what does not ‘feel’ right. I trust my instincts. You need to learn to do this too. Give yourself permission to explore and have fun, then go with it. The ideas will come. Yes, they will. Relax!